


the sum of our parts

by ohmygodwhy



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Episode Tag, Family Feels, Fix-It of Sorts, Fred is a good dad, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Threats of Violence, let the boy rest.., not even gonna play im just picking and choosing what i like and ignoring the rest, self-care at its finest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-01-23 21:03:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12516528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: he cooks breakfast at the andrews’ on sunday mornings; a habit from when he was living with them, sleeping on archie’s floor. it feels like so long ago, even though it’s barely been a few months. he’s flipping pancakes, archie sitting across the table, bent over his history homework, when fred hobbles his way in.(the months after fred gets shot are a lesson in balance.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> me, ignoring a solid half of what's happening: yeah season 2 is going p well lol
> 
> i have two (2) quizzes tomorrow and here i am anyways

  
  
mr andrews moves with a fragility he didn't have, before. he's quieter. he's more careful with his movements, doesn't talk as quickly, doesn’t talk as loud. he was never a very outspoken person to begin with, but now it’s like he’s hardly there. sometimes, jughead is afraid he'll shatter, like porcelain, if he falls. break into a million pieces.  
  
archie isn't much better. neither is fp. neither is jughead, if he's being honest with himself, which he never is, but that doesn't matter as much. it's all a lesson in balance, he thinks, and he's never had very good balance, but he's quick when he needs to be, and he knows about bad situations and how to hold on by your fingertips just enough to make it work. he visits his dad in his holding cell, and visits archie where he's been holed up in his hallway with a baseball bat, and visits fred in the hospital until he comes home, and then visits him there. lots of walking. and then not as much, because a few of the serpents his age have cars.  
  
the point is, sometimes jughead is afraid mr a is going to shatter. he's afraid his dad will shatter—whispering into the phone after jughead tells him The News: _yeah, andrews, a-n-d-r-e-w-s, well if you knew how to spell it why the hell aren't you connecting me? the fuck you mean he can't talk right now, he's in the hospital what else is he doing, you jackass._ and jughead has to say _calm down, he's fine, you can talk to him later,_ because the sheriff is giving him a look that says _deal with it before i do_ , and lately the sheriff hasn't been very good at his job, so jughead doesn't wanna see his version of dealing with it.  
  
_i don't wanna talk to him later,_ fp snarls, fingers tight around the phone, knuckles white, _this motherfucker won't put me through._  
  
balance, jughead thinks, and patience, maybe. a lesson in both. he takes the phone from his dad himself, has to uncurl his fingers one by one like he’s dealing with a spooked child, and holds him like it, too. his dad is heavier than him, all his weight bearing down on him as he squeezes his worry away, but jughead can hold both of them up if he needs to. he’s had plenty of practice. balance and patience.  
  
balance and patience, he thinks again, listening to his dad's shitty government-provided lawyer lay out an even shittier deal. twenty years, if he takes it. the possibility of forty, if he doesn't. jughead doesn't even have to look up to know what his dad is thinking. fp's never been one for taking deals he can't negotiate himself. that jones pride of his will get him killed someday, mom used to say. he wonders what mom would say now, if she were here. he wonders if she heard about it; he’s called her a few times, tried to get ahold of her to—to explain, to ask for help, to something. he thinks that if she has heard about it, she has good reason not to pick up. dad doesn’t ask about it, either way. jughead wonders if one of his prison cell calls had been to toledo, and if she’d picked up then.  
  
balance and patience and survival, maybe, if he wants to be dramatic about it, which he does. a favor for a favor, is the thing. can’t ask for shit and not reciprocate, not put in the effort, can’t take something and then drop out. he should know that, by now, but the serpents aren’t exactly the most popular group of people in the world, and they haven’t had the greatest impact on his life so far, either. sort of landed his father in jail. not that he wouldn’t have ended up there eventually, if he’s being honest, but it’s the thought.  
  
point is, he’s gotten the shit kicked out of him enough times to know when to suck it up and give in. besides, toni seems nice, if not a little intimidating. most of the serpents are taller and wider than him, but he can make this work. like father like son, he thinks, pulling up a chair next to toni. sweet pea eyes the bruise around his eye, and it feels like a defeat.

his dad takes one look at him and says _what the fuck did you get yourself into, jug_ , with a fierce kind of care that hasn’t exactly been very present the last few years, so jughead doesn’t see why it has the right to surface now. instead of saying this, he says _it was just some stupid kids, dad, it’s high school._

fp says _they let this happen to you?_ like he needs the serpents to look after him, like he hasn’t been taking care of his own damn self for the past sixteen years of his life. _no_ , jughead says, because the kids who’d beat his ass and tossed him in a dumpster afterwards had shown up to school a few days later with some nasty black eyes and a few teeth less than they had before, _they took care of it_ . he can’t tell if his dad is relieved or disappointed, and that feels like a defeat, too.  
  
  
  
it feels like the whole town is living for survival, these days. it isn’t new to him, months of counting quarters and crumpled dollar bills, years of food stamps and his dad’s hand-me-down jackets, but it’s new to the town. archie is paranoid and veronica is suffocating and mr andrews is made of porcelain. fp might go to prison for a few decades. jughead just joined a gang, and he’s living in his dad’s trailer instead of the foster home—he said they could still take the pension money, and they’d let him waltz right back out. he feels like he’s walking the edge between two evils—the andrews’ too-quiet household and the hallways of his new high school, the empty trailer, leather on his back and his dad on the other side of the cell bars and archie crying into his shoulder in the waiting room.  
  
balance. and survival.  
  
he cooks breakfast at the andrews’ on sunday mornings; a habit from when he was living with them, sleeping on archie’s floor. it feels like so long ago, even though it’s barely been a few months. he’s flipping pancakes, archie sitting across the table, bent over his history homework, when fred hobbles his way in.  
  
(privately, jughead thinks the doctor was stupid as hell for letting the man walk around so early into his recovery. it’s like asking a kid with a broken arm to keep writing with it like a week after they get their cast on. he thinks that nobody in this town, save fred and betty’s crazy mom, is actually good at their job.)  
  
“hey, jug,” he says. doesn’t sound surprised to see him, even though he hadn’t told anyone he was coming. this is just how it is.  
  
“hey, mr a,” he responds quietly, matching fred’s tone. it doesn’t feel right, talking over him. louder than him. jughead is so used to being the quiet one that it’s weird, hearing his own voice echo more than an andrews’. “you hungry?”  
  
there’s a pause, and jughead thinks that maybe fred wants to say no.  
  
he says, “sure, smells good,” instead, because fred has always hated to say no. he’s never refused something that someone else has put work into. he used to taste-test the more complex recipes jughead would try to cook when he was younger, playing chef in a kitchen bigger than his ever was because it made him feel more grown up. jughead is sure that more than half the shit he made was on the level of yesterday’s garbage, probably tasted even worse, but fred would always take a long moment to consider, nod a little, and then offer his suggestions.  
  
fred nearly reaches for the cabinet above the counter, but jughead, silently, beats him to it. no need to hurt yourself over a plate, he doesn’t say. fred smiles at him, something soft and sad, and hobbles around the table to lower himself carefully next to archie.  
  
he really shouldn’t be walking around. crutches, at least, jughead thinks, piling the pancakes onto the plate. at least.  
  
(he also thinks that maybe mr andrews has his own little idea of pride, too. nobody’s immune to it. it’s probably why jughead spent half a year living in various less-than-safe places. it’s probably why his dad is behind bars. it’s probably why mr andrews is walking around when he really shouldn’t be. it’ll get you killed someday, mom used to say.)  
  
“thanks, jug,” fred says when jughead slides a plate across the table with an added flourish, because the kitchen is not meant to be this quiet. archie gives an absent thank you from his seat, still razor-sharp focused on the textbook in front of him, and it makes jughead smile. it almost feels like it felt a few months ago, when everything was messy but not _this_ messy. archie has always had a bad habit of waiting till sunday to finish his homework.  
  
“you should start paying me for this,” jughead says, dragging a chair over and picking up a fork. the metal is cool against his fingers. a joke, maybe, to lighten the mood a little. they both know jughead wouldn’t be here if he didn’t want to be.  
  
still, fred takes it halfway to heart. “how about a movie night, to start it off?” he asks.  
  
jughead, vaguely surprised even though he shouldn’t be by now, glances at archie, who’s listening now that there’s food in front of him. he seems to consider, taking a bite of his pancake, and shrugs.  
  
“sure,” jughead says, ignoring the small ache in his chest when mr andrews smiles like it’s the best news he’s heard in weeks. “what movies?” and then, “archie can’t pick,” a moment later.  
  
archie sputters, mainly for show, because the poor guy still looks half asleep, “why not?”  
  
“i’m not watching four hours of high speed car chases or romantic comedies.”  
  
“that’s not all i watch,” he protests weakly, even though there’s a faint smile on his face, “and not everyone likes horror all the time.”  
  
“i don’t know,” mr andrews says, considering, “i think i’m in a classic horror film kinda mood.”  
  
jughead smiles, suddenly more excited, despite himself. “original scream, or nightmare on elm street?”  
  
“scream, to start with,” he says, which doesn’t surprise jughead very much. billy, covered in blood as he is at the end, looks almost exactly like his dad did when he was young; jughead has heard his mom point it out every time they watched the movie since he was six. he's been watching fred and his dad dance around each other for just as long. “archie can pick the second movie—as long as it’s not any of those fast and furious ones with all the weird titles.”  
  
“i don’t even watch those movies,” archie lies, because jughead has watched them with him on multiple occasions, loudly critiquing the whole time.  
  
“no car chase ones, either,” jughead adds, just so archie will flip him off under the table.  
  
“fine,” he says, annoyed, but it’s ruined by his smile.  
  
he ends up picking _the iron giant,_ and jughead is tempted to choose another horror movie just to spite him because that movie always makes him fucking cry, but he doesn’t, because he’s trying to be nice. he doesn’t need anymore bad karma from the universe. jughead ends up picking _memento,_ because neither of them have seen it before and jughead wants to watch their reaction to all the twists.  
  
it ends up more of a movie day than a movie night, and jughead chooses the first _nightmare on elm street_ next because archie had the nerve to make fun of him when _he_ was crying like a baby himself, but it’s. nice. normal, even. nostalgic, in ways it shouldn’t have to be. archie falls asleep halfway into _meet the robinsons_ , and jughead pretends it’s normal to have to gently shake mr andrews awake and help him up the stairs so he doesn’t hurt himself by sleeping in a bad position on the couch.  
  
balance, he thinks, flicking the tv off and trying to decide whether or not to walk back to the trailer. and good days in the sea of bad ones. patience.  
  
jughead turns the lights off as he leaves, and hopes to whatever god there is in the sky that things are looking up.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comment to keep fp from going to prison for the next 20-40 years of his life like jesus christ


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it reminds jughead a little of that scene in the odyssey, the one where they have to sail between those two cliffs with monsters on either side. scylla and charybdis, he confirms, searching it up on his laptop because he couldn’t remember their names. either half of the men get eaten or all of them get sucked into the sea. a rock and a hard place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is...too short and doesnt rlly match the mood of the last chapter but i wrote it anyways and didnt have anywhere else to put it. also i hate this show. but i love the serpents (eyes my other 15850953 fics featuring them) and also fred

 

there’s this kid in jughead’s first period who always falls asleep halfway through the class. every single day, without fail. jughead spends a solid third of the hour everyday watching the process: watches him prop his elbow on the desk and prop his chin on his hand, and watches the way his eyelids start to droop and his head bobs with the effort of keeping himself awake—and that part doesn’t last long. he usually goes fuck it, and falls asleep within four or so minutes.

he doesn’t snore, but he’s not exactly being discreet about it, either—discreet enough to keep the teacher off his ass, maybe, most of the time. jughead can’t really blame him. first period is history, and jughead usually likes history, but not this class, because it’s boring as shit and the teacher only knows what he’s saying about a fourth of a time. it doesn’t matter much, either way, because it’s basically the same shit he’s learned every other year. american public school system.

one day, somewhere in the middle of the process, the teacher calls the kid’s name all sharp and asks him some question about whatever’s on the board. he jumps awake, hitting his knee on the bottom of the desk, and blinks around like squinting hard enough will show him the answer. jughead mouths it to him, some date of some war like every other date of every other war, behind his hand when he looks his way, the way he used to whisper the answers to archie in middle school algebra.

the kid tosses him a kit-kat he had in his pocket afterwards as a thank you. when jughead asks why the hell he had a kit-kat in his pocket, he shrugs and says _discount halloween candy._ and then, when jughead says that halloween was literally months ago, he says _i got a cigarette, too, if you want,_ and jughead says _i’m good with the chocolate, thanks._

give and take. favor for a favor; even the little things.

jughead gives the chocolate to archie, later, when he walks over to do his homework on the andrews’ kitchen counter and watch fred try to make dinner until he drops something that jughead will pick up for him, because archie is all focused on his math like he always is. discount halloween candy, he says when archie asks.

mr a’s leg ends up giving out halfway through cooking the chicken, and dad’s lawyer calls with some vaguely worrying shit he doesn’t understand and archie isn’t focused on his math because he’s focused on who shot his dad and jughead realizes he doesn’t have money for any discount candy of his own because he still hasn’t gotten another job. he wonders if maybe he should’ve taken the cigarette.

he’s always had shit balance.

and then archie is out doing stupid shit because he’s always done stupid shit—falling out of the treehouse when they were seven, calling chuck clayton out on cheating during kickball and then getting his new d.s. stolen, having an illicit, extremely illegal affair-thing with the fake music teacher who got her throat slit a few weeks ago; not always really his fault, just a side-effect of the kind of person he is—but he’s never done shit as stupid as this. and he’s always been swayed easily—half the town thinks the shooter was someone from the southside, and a good half of that half is sure it was a serpent. he’s moved past spending the nights in the hallway with a baseball bat; he’s off taking that fear and projecting it outwards, instead.

 _the thing about snakes_ , he hears his dad say somewhere, and cuts him off before he can finish his cliche snake reference/threat. because the thing about _people_ is that if you bother them first, they’ll bother you back. the thing about archie is that he’s reckless when he’s scared and he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing half the time, and most of the time it’s vaguely endearing but right now it just has jughead on the verge of a panic attack.

the serpents don’t like archie and archie doesn’t like the serpents much right now, either. there’s a wannabe zodiac killer with a really unsuccessful kill streak somewhere out there, waving a gun around and only shooting northsiders.

it reminds jughead a little of that scene in the odyssey, the one where they have to sail between those two cliffs with monsters on either side. scylla and charybdis, he confirms, searching it up on his laptop because he couldn’t remember their names. either half of the men get eaten or all of them get sucked into the sea. a rock and a hard place.

he remembers odysseus having to choose the lesser of two evils—better for some to die than all of them. he wonders, head propped on his hand in the middle of first period history, what represents what in this situation, and then remembers that he isn’t some greek hero with the world on his shoulders, so he doesn’t have the right to make the choice either way.

 

jughead is rightfully mad at archie for picking a fight with the serpents, and archie gets unrightfully mad about jughead getting mad. which is stupid, and archie’s been doing all kinds of stupid shit, lately. he almost expects it, when archie gets confrontational about what jughead is calling _the serpent situation_ in his head. says he’s probably friends with a serial killer. jughead tells him you have to actually successfully kill more than one person to actually be considered a serial killer.

he’s never known when to shut the hell up, but he’s never gone easy on archie, either, not when he doesn’t deserve it.

jughead probably shouldn’t blame him for being tense and angry after his dad had an actual bullet pulled out of him, but he does anyways. he feels justified in it, too, because yeah, archie is hurting. archie is traumatized, he’s scared and paranoid. jughead’s dad might be going to prison and he just joined his gang. everyone has their own shit they’re dealing with.

fred is the one who got shot, and he hasn’t breathed a word about revenge. all of jughead’s patience has dried up.

toni finds out, somehow, because she knows everything and can probably read auras and shit. she knew his full name. likes true crime novels. third day she knew him she said _you’re not very straight, are you_. snapped a picture, right after, just to get his reaction immortalized.

“you and your boyfriend have a fight?” she asks.

“no,” he says. he never can get a read on her.

sweet pea, the tall fuck, says “i told you that andrews kid was crazy.”

“fuck off,” jughead says, because he doesn’t have the will to argue. all bent out of shape. losing his balance.

“what the hell do you owe to anyone over there, anyways?” sweet pea asks. “they sent your dad to jail—sent you to a watered-down version ‘cause you picked up a few matches. fp used to drink and get pissed about it—and he should be. you should be, too.”

jughead wants to tell him that he is, of course he’s mad about it, and he also wants to tell him that he’s not, because getting mad doesn’t change shit, it just makes it harder.

“not all of them are bad people _,_ ” he deflects. it has sweet pea rolling his eyes again like he can’t believe the bullshit he’s hearing, and he says “name one fucking person who wouldn’t throw you under the bus in a split fucking second.”

he almost says _mr a_ on impulse, right there. he let him stay in house, sleep on his floor, eat his food. bought him new school supplies when he tore his all up, bailed him out when his dad didn’t show. called him trouble and let him sleep on the couch in the garage. seemed more resigned than anything when he found out fp was arrested. won’t visit him when he’s behind bars. fred is not a confrontational person, but that doesn't make him _bad._

instead of saying any of this, he says nothing. it feels like a defeat more than anything, when sweet pea nods at him like he’s just won a battle and pats him on the back like he’s just made a friend. his hands are very big. he can never get a read on him, either; can’t really tell if the guy hates him or not. he calls him jones but kicks the teeth out of the guy who tossed jughead in a dumpster and tells him to be careful. serpents protect their own, maybe.

 _can’t trust those northsiders,_ ricky says later, after he drove jughead back from visiting his dad, and pets hotdog absently where he’s sitting on his lap.

alice cooper says _we should tear down southside high and use the money for something better_ . fred says _the southside is not the issue, here._

archie apologizes over text and jughead accepts his apology because last summer was the longest he was ever able to stay mad at him. he cooks dinner at the andrews’ house because fred is still on strict couch-rest and archie can’t cook for shit. it’s cold in the trailer but the next morning ricky picks him up in his dad’s shitty truck and they all go to the gas station for cheap coffee and hot pretzels.

he asks around and finds some used crutches for fred, because the other day he almost passed out in the shower and then nearly tripped on his way down the stairs. it scares jughead, seeing him like that: walking like he’s trying not to slip on the ice. his hands shake, now; from tension or anxiety or just because he’s tired and getting older everyday, jughead doesn’t know.

fred tells him “you don’t have to spend your money on me, jug, i’m fine.”

“i didn’t spend a cent,” jughead says, “just borrowed them from a friend--you need them more than they do, right now,” and then, when fred just looks down at them like he can’t decide if he should touch them or not, “please? you don’t have to fall down the stairs just to prove something.”

fred looks at him for a long moment, and then smiles a little, something tired, “thanks, jug. tell your friend i said thanks, too.”

fred holds the crutches in his hands, curls his fingers around the metal like he’s afraid it’ll burn him. like he’s afraid something will happen if he lets himself need something. jughead looks away.

“i will.”

a lesson in balance.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heard tht my boys are gonna have an argument or smth next week and also brought my [fav serpent](http://riverdale.wikia.com/wiki/Season_2_Minor_Characters#Young_Serpent/)  
> (he dont even have his own name yet. he's ricky in my heart) back myself bc he hasn't shown up since the premiere!! 
> 
> comment to help me pass my calc test next week


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> three nights after keller arrests malachai and a few other ghoulies who didn’t run fast enough, jughead gets a knock on the trailer door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy thanksgiving have some jug having a panic attack content tht didn't really fit anywhere else but here. set after 2.06

 

 

three nights after keller arrests malachai and a few other ghoulies who didn’t run fast enough, jughead gets a knock on the trailer door. he’s halfway through heating up some instant macaroni and cheese, those mini ones with the gross clumpy powder you mix in but still taste good. he’s down to his last bowl, because he’s had the same thing for the past three nights because he hasn't had time to go food shopping lately.

he looks through the peephole first, just long enough to avoid catching the eye of a few boys he’d seen around school, hanging in the back of the cafeteria and tipping back knock-off pixie sticks between classes. the one in the middle held him down while his friend kicked him in the face a few weeks back. ghoulies, then.

fuck, he thinks. shit. fucking archie and his stupid idealistic plans. fucking sheriff.

there’s another knock, and jughead very much does not flinch back.

“what the hell do you want?” he calls, putting his hand on the doorknob but not daring to turn it.

“jones?” one of them asks through the door, “you fp’s kid?”

“who wants to know?” he says, even though he knows exactly who wants to know, and why. absently, he scans the room around him for something to defend himself with.

“open the fucking door and we’ll talk,” the same one says instead of answering the question.

“got nothing to talk about.”

he thinks maybe his dad still keeps his old baseball bat in the closet like he used to. calculates how quickly he can run and get it.

“your fault malachai’s locked up,” he starts; says something else, but jughead isn’t listening, sprinting the few feet to the bedroom as quickly as he can, socks quiet against the creaky floor. feels around in the tiny closet and thank fuck, he thinks, fingers curling around the old wood. he’s back at the door in time to hear, “thought we’d return the favor.”

“what, you gonna call the cops on me?” he asks, and pretends his heart isn’t pounding in his chest. god, maybe he should’ve taken the brass knuckles sweet pea offered him after the stupid initiation— _you got back up_ , he had said, oddly sincere, _you can keep em._

"thought we’d bring you a message instead,” and it sounds so cliche jughead almost laughs. _thought we’d send you a message, teach you a lesson_ the classic bully says, with his shitty hair and ugly jacket. jughead wonders vaguely whether that makes him james dean or plato. decides it doesn’t matter because he’s gonna get the shit kicked out of him either way.

he doesn’t say anything this time, because he can hear the creak of the front porch that means the door is gonna be kicked in. not very hard to do. it doesn’t even shut all the way unless you slam it. instead, he puts his back to the wall, draws his arms up and rests the bat on his shoulder like he’s waiting to hit a homerun like fred used to teach him. he’s never actually hit a homerun before, though. archie has plenty, but archie has always been the one to do those things. jughead’s always been the one to watch.

his fingers shake against the wood, but it doesn’t matter, because the door flies open and he steps and twists and swings like he remembers. hits the doorframe and the kid’s thigh, hard enough that he jerks back and cusses out something vulgar enough that archie would blush if he were here.

jughead swings again, this time into the floor, close enough to the kid’s feet that he stumbles backwards into his friend.

“hey, man, hold on,” he says, like he doesn’t have a knife in his hand and a really hard kick.

“back up,” jughead says, holding his dad’s bat out in front of him like a shield, like it’ll protect him if he just holds tight enough. nobody moves, so he swings the bat against the floor again. the sound rings through the night, and he snarls, “get the fuck out of my house.”

“you better watch your fuckin’ back,” one of them spits, but they get the fuck out of his house—off of his porch, more like, if you wanna call it a porch, which fp used to do.

“yeah, fuck off,” he calls after them. he’s proud that his voice doesn’t shake.

he waits until they’re out of sight to slam the door  and sag against it, all the air leaving his body. he drops the bat, and it clatters against the floor.

 _shit,_ he thinks—he says, maybe, bringing his hand up to clutch at his chest where his heart is beating too fast, fast enough that he thinks it might burst open, might spill out, might burn out and leave him dead on the floor.

“ _shit,”_ he gasps again. takes a deep breath, then two, then three. counts to twenty and back down to one the way he used to when he listened to his parents fight, when his dad swung at him and missed and cried about it after.

he waits until his breathing evens out, and then he stands and picks up the bat (it takes him three tries) and slips it back into the closet where it belongs.

he needs to fix the door, in case they come back. at least lock it up. he pulls the door shut as tight as it can go and slides the lock into place and pulls a chair over from the kitchen and pushes it against the door, shoves it hard up under the handle. finds some scotch tape in the kitchen to make sure it doesn’t come loose. shoves the door stop under the crack. tapes the window shut.

he takes a step back. god, he’s getting paranoid. it isn’t the fucking purge, he thinks to himself, throwing the tape back into the kitchen drawer. he doesn’t need to lock himself inside. he just doesn’t want to die in his sleep, the same way he slept with a knife under his pillow at the drive-in because he didn’t wanna get stabbed by some junkie for his pocket change.

thinking ahead. being prepared and shit.

his macaroni is cold by now, but he’s not very hungry anymore anyways. he dumps it down the sink and throws the container in the trash. thinks about calling archie, and doesn’t.

he does pull his phone out, collapses on the couch like the strings holding him up have been cut. he still has a science paper to write for friday, so he pulls up the docs app because his laptop is in the other room and he doesn’t think he could go get it if he tried.

he wonders if toni has any good web sources for the paper. he wonders if he should call her. he wonders again if he should call archie. fred, maybe. if he should tell someone or if he should tell no one because it doesn’t matter and nothing happened anyways, because it’s not a surprise, because he deserves it for getting archie involved, because it’s better that they fuck up some trailer instead of a respectable northside home.

besides, he reasons, if he tells fred then he’ll have to explain why and then he’ll know about jughead almost crashing a car with his son in the passenger's seat because he needed to win that badly.

no, he thinks, typing out something about newton's third law, he’s not telling mr a.

 

he wakes up to his phone buzzing. his neck aches when he jerks awake, and he realizes blearily that he fell asleep. his head hurts, and his phone has slid off his lap and onto the floor. he stoops down, back aching, to snatch it up.

it’s toni. he squints against the artificial light. a text, with a link to a twitter thread— _tips on getting a sugar daddy,_ he reads—and a _if u ever need the extra cash_ underneath it.

he can hear the humor in her voice, and, he laughs a little despite himself. it hurts his throat, but it’s funny. he reads the whole thing, nodding along as he does.

 _a good backup plan,_ he types out. _i’ll look into it._

he hits send, and locks his phone, and takes a deep breath. the kind you feel deep in your ribs. he'll ask her about good web sources later. a lesson in balance. 

he wonders if he should skip first period tomorrow to sleep in.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can't believe archie ran (he doesn't have a driver's license) all the way across town to save jug from getting arrested. when will ur man ever. 
> 
> comment to get my through finals season lol (also toni sent him [this](https://twitter.com/omggarc/status/932035563099688961/) rip)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> she gives them both a zinger on their way out and says “don’t get into any more trouble on your way home. lord knows there’s already enough trouble in this town.”
> 
> yeah, jughead agrees again but doesn’t say out loud, can’t argue with you there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah ik i dont go here anymore but the heart wants what it wants ig? this is rlly short and didnt rlly fit anywhere else but here. also i have no idea how season 2 ends other than archie getting arrested or smth and i never will.

 

there’s a lady who works down at the grocery store that ricky works at, who’s lived in the trailer park ever since before jughead’s family moved in. he doesn’t know her first name, because she’s never told him and he’s never asked, but she always used to call him that smart little jones boy and give him little plastic wrapped hostess snacks from the checkout aisle at the grocery sometimes. she has two kids who aren’t around anymore because they’re all grown up. he thinks one of them works at the mayor’s office and doesn’t visit very much. the other one joined a gang across the river. she doesn’t hear from that one anymore.    
  
_ empty nest syndrome, _ his dad had called it one day when he came home to he and jellybean eating suzy q’s in the living room. he had been drunk, probably, had rolled his eyes at the treats he couldn’t buy himself and said  _ don’t know how anyone could miss having kids around; i’ll finally get some breathing room back when you two’re in college.  _ __  
  
jughead had known, even back then, that he probably didn’t mean it. his dad always got defensive when other people did things he couldn’t, like fred paying for jughead to go to summer camp with archie or mrs ochoa patting jellybeans head and giving her treats they can’t buy themselves. besides, fp was never mean to her.    
  
empty nest syndrome, jughead thinks, watching her bustle around the store, stacking cereal boxes and dollar fifty cans of soup. he doesn’t know how old she is, but he thinks she’s too old to be doing all this work. she bustles her way over to where he’s leaning against the checkout counter and talking to ricky.    
  
“look who it is,” she says, her vague accent only growing heavier with age, “that smart little jones boy. i haven’t seen you around in a while. how’s your sister?”   
  
he doesn’t have the heart to tell her that his sister is far away from here and won’t be coming back, so he just says “she’s doing alright. she’s visiting some family outside of town.”   
  
“and what, you’re too busy to visit with her?”    
  
“something like that.”    
  
she rolls her eyes, all affectionate like jughead doesn’t deserve, and says “teenagers. always think what you’re doing is so important. don’t know a damn thing, any of you.”    
  
he glances at ricky, who’s trying to figure out that coin trick where you roll it down your fingers with some of the cash register money, and can’t help a small smile.   
  
“can’t argue with you there.”    
  
mrs ochoa follows his gaze, and makes an exasperated noise.    
  
“stupid boy,” she says, slapping the quarter out of ricky’s hand, but she’s laughing, too.    
  
she gives them both a zinger on their way out and says “don’t get into any more trouble on your way home. lord knows there’s already enough trouble in this town.”   
  
yeah, jughead agrees again but doesn’t say out loud, can’t argue with you there.    
  
  
  
he doesn’t tell mr a about the ghoulies knocking on his door at ten pm, not even to brag about his perfect swinging form. he does tell toni, because apparently one of the kids had been complaining loudly about how fp’s kid attacked him with a bat or something.   
  
“they broke down my door,” he tells her, “they were basically asking to be hit.”   
  
“a baseball bat,” sweet pea says across the table, huffing a laugh. “a wooden one. god, you’re stupid.”    
  
“it worked,” jughead says, not rising to the bait.    
  
“i guess. you should’ve called us, we coulda messed them up for getting us into all this shit.”    
  
instead of telling him that he genuinely thought about it afterwards but didn’t wanna sound like he was asking for help again, he says “you like punching people too much.”    
  
sweet pea doesn’t disagree. 

 

instead of going to archie’s -- to  _ riverdale high’s _ football game that afternoon, because archie hadn’t invited him and he hadn’t asked, the four of them, minus fangs, trek the few blocks over to the thrift shop that’s been up since forever, because sweet pea’s left shoe has a huge hole in it, he doesn’t have another pair, and it’s starting to get cold. 

it’s a familiar little place. jughead’s mom used to bring he and his sister every other saturday when everything was half-off, and let them get whatever weird shit they could find. last winter he’d taken six dollars from his dad’s wallet and bought jellybean a new hat to cover her ears, because her old one was fraying and his mom was always too busy trying to make enough money to keep their heating on to do it herself. 

he only has ten on him right now, stuffed into his back pocket. maybe twelve if he counts the quarters. he still hasn’t gotten a new job yet, with everything crazy happening, but he picked up one of ricky’s shifts last week and mrs ochoa actually paid him for it. and christmas is coming up, anyways, and he can’t get his dad anything in prison and he doesn’t want anything for himself, so maybe he can buy fred a baseball bat or something, for when he gets better, even though he probably already has a hundred of them. he doesn’t know. he just wants to do something. 

“i don’t want any knock-off converse,” sweet pea is saying, frowning at the shoes toni’s holding up as a suggestion.

“what’s wrong with knock-off converse?” jughead asks.

“they’re like ten bucks, you can tell they’re knockoffs, and  _ you  _ wear them,” he shoots back. jughead doesn’t take it personally; sweet pea’s always a little bit more of an asshole when fangs isn’t around.

“they’re seven dollars,” he says, peering at the little sticker with the price tag--six ninety nine, which means they’ve been here for a while.

“basically ten.”

“not really.”

toni holds up another pair, slip on shoes that look like they’re trying to be gold, or maybe they were once but the shine’s gone dull. “how about these?” she asks, smiling.

“ricky would wear those,” he says, like it’s an insult.

_ “you’d _ wear them if they were actually shiny.”

“well, they’re  _ not  _ actually shiny, so fuck off.”

sweet pea ends up finding some boots that fit his huge ass feet -- they’re eight dollars, because they’re newer-looking, but price suddenly isn’t an issue. toni finds a weird jacket with birds on it, and a cassette player that probably doesn’t work even with batteries in it. 

jughead combs through the cds, because they don’t have any baseball bats and it was a dumb idea anyways, and finds something old and eighties. greatest hits. lots of springsteen in the list of songs on the back. it’s only three dollars. 

he cracks the case open in the checkout line to check the quality. the cd is missing, he realizes, and the case is empty. 

sweet pea’s four dollars short anyways, because he spent too much on gas, so jughead leaves the empty case in the trash can, lends him the money instead, and tries to stamp down the disappointment in his chest. it’s just a cd. he’s sure fred already has tons of those, and it’s not like a few good songs are gonna make his hospital bills disappear or his business thrive again.

it’s whatever, he thinks. he still has six dollars left. eight if he counts the quarters. he can try again some other day.

 

sweet pea drives him down to the prison later, because he missed coming on sunday and he doesn’t wanna wait another two weeks, and it’s easier for him to do this than to say thanks for helping him pay. 

“you should tell your dad,” he says after he puts the truck in park.

jughead looks at him, surprised. “tell him what, some dumb kids kicked his door down and i hit one of them with his old ass bat?”   
  
sweet pea shrugs. “tell him you got threatened or something. he can probably deal with it better than us.”   
  
it’s a one eighty. sweet pea punched him in the face with brass knuckles on and barely raised an eyebrow when he showed up to lunch the day after the ghoulies kicked the shit out of him in the hallway, just looked at him, unapologetic, as if to say  _ i told you so. _ this is new.   
  
sweet pea must see something on his face, because he scoffs. “if they threatened you, they’ll probably be after the rest of us soon. i don’t wanna have to deal with that shit.”   
  
“you loves fights, though.”   
  
“get outta my fuckin car.”    
  
jughead gets out of his fuckin car. it’s an old thing, and it’s actually sweet pea’s brother’s; half of the front bumper is missing because of an accident three years ago and the oil leaks all the time, but he drives it around like it’s the best thing in the world. it’s one of the few things to his name he likes to show off, other than his hair and his bike and his stupid brass knuckles. it’s nicer than fp’s truck, at least. jughead can’t begrudge him for that.    
  
jughead watches him drive away, the tires kicking up dirt. four wheels instead of two. more balance that way; can’t fall over if you don’t pay attention.    
  
maybe he should get the truck working again, he thinks absently. the only person he knows who can actually fix trucks is mr a, but he’s still barely walking around. he doesn’t trust ricky anywhere near it, and there’s not enough time to learn to do it himself. he decides against it.

he goes and talks to his dad, who’s still in prison and not any closer to getting out of it; his shitty lawyer is there to tell them both that the situation is Not Looking Good, stresses the syllables enough that fp’s hands shake where they’re pressed hard against the table, and no, he thinks, digging his thumb nail into his opposite hand so it doesn’t shake too, there’s no time to fix the truck at all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comment to get archie out of jail ig


End file.
